It's been a busy couple of weeks..again! My family is working on finding it's new balance after the loss of my husband's father. To that end we have spent lots of time trying to work towards what will be the new normal and making sure that everyone is healing and moving forward well.

Now that that has been said, I have been thinking about what to write once I got back into my "blogging" seat and after my husband and I went to dinner last night I got it! As we were talking, my husband was discussing how life has options. He spends a lot of time with different types of people through his work and manages a lot of different personalities. He was talking about how people work so hard to get that right job, and the right house and the right car and all the right other stuff, that maybe they forget that what is really suppose to be happening is that you are designing a life. Designing a life that is what you want for yourself and your family.

It would be too cavalier of me to say that a job and money aren't important, because frankly they are. We all need to be able to support ourselves and our families. But, in doing that maybe we should think about how we want all of that to work, to flow to become a part of the grand plan of what our family design looks like.

Last week I had the opportunity to travel to Texas to visit with our youngest child, who is actually a grown up. He is a senior at the University of Texas. While I was waiting in the airport (because of course there was a delay), I was eves dropping on a mother who was traveling with her 3 daughters. It was quite interesting to listen to their conversations, alright, maybe it was rude to eves drop, actually I was worse than eves dropping..I was taking notes while they talked! The youngest daughter was the most verbal and was actually so appalling rude that it was hard not to say something. Of course, this is all just my opinion, but wow, this young lady was something! Her tone of voice, her choice or words, her rudeness were hard to swallow. She actually said " This is so organic and healthy I could die." Her mother was offering her some snacks since it was obvious they had also enjoyed the opportunity to be delayed while traveling. As the time progressed that we were all waiting for our flights, all three of these young woman continued to be loud, and rude and just plain bratty to their mother, to the wait staff in the Admiral's Club, and to their own father on the phone. As I scribbled furiously, I thought what a family! I wonder if the parents of these girls are happy with the family they have designed? I don't know, but I wondered as these girls spoke rudely to their mother and chastised their father what had happened along the way that this is their result. It is not rocket science. I would guess that these girls are and have been allowed to behave as they did, and actually encouraged by their parents through their parenting style. These young woman were all beautiful and were on their way back to Los Angeles, and I wondered if that had anything to do with how they behaved? Was that allowed and was that what their parents wanted?

Designing the family you want takes time, intelligence, discipline and love. I know that my husband and I have spent countless hours talking and doing what we believe is best for our family and our children. We chose to invest the time and energy to try and demonstrate, model and explain what we expected from our children. We did not expect them to be perfect, but we did expect them to behave well, respect others, be ethical and respect themselves. Our children are now all adults. The last one is getting ready to fly on his own. He is ready. He is able and he is prepared because his father and I took the time. The time to let him know he was valuable through time spent and boundaries set. His older sisters are flying well, and have been for a few years. Our goal as parents in designing a healthy family was to help each of our children become strong, capable, loving people all their own. People who will make a difference in this world through what they do and who they are. To that end, I hope we have done that. I believe that we have.

Who knows? You might read about one of our daughters in a food magazine; have one of your children be taught by our daughter the teacher; and coming soon, see our son's name on the marquis of short film festivals. He has submitted his first films. He is on his way.